The Times published on Friday a very remarkable letter on
the opium agitation. The writer, " Abdalla Meer All Dharamsi," a Mahommodan solicitor of Bombay, a Fellow of the Universityand a Justice of the Peace, gives his experience of the use of opium, both in Bombay and his native province, Catch. He declares that, as compared with alcohol, it does no harm at all, The quantity taken, he affirms, does not in- crease with the habit; he found opium-eaters of from fifty to 'eighty years old looking robust and healthy, and he believes the habit to be so rooted, that prohibition would produce -smuggling, which in the case of a drag so small, and so desired, cannot be suppressed. He adds—what is, we believe, confirmed by English experience—that its suppression, if it could be effected, would be followed by an immense increase in the use of alcohol, which to all the Dark races is most -deadly. They cannot afford wine, and drink only to be drunk. He mentions, moreover, that prohibition would not affect con- sumption of itself, tli2 Persian and Turkish drug being already in full demand. Neither those argument's nor any others will affect Radical faddists, but perhaps they may weigh with more moderate persons.
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